Tell us something about your company
ELITER Packaging Machinery – a HUANENG Company, is a brand and company of our family business for three generations in the packaging automation and packaging machinery sector. For time being we specialize in the design, manufacturing and sales of secondary packaging machines including cartoning machines, overwrapping machines, and wrap-around sleevers. We are going through a stage of transformation where we are outdating old models from the last generations and introducing new and cutting-edge advanced packaging machines with participate in the higher-level of market positioning.
What are your recent achievements of your transformation?
ELITER Packaging Machinery is aiming to break through the stereotype that packaging machines made in China are basic, mediocre and even of inferior quality. From our part, we want to develop advanced packaging machines that can be counterparts to those made by well-known packaging machine manufacturers in Europe and the United States.
A recently launched model is ESTRENA Wrap-Around Sleever, or Wrap-Around Cartoner, which is designed and developed on a full servo-driven basis, while the electrical and programming part is supported by SIEMENS China.
Wrap-Around Sleever or Cartoner is a machine that can wrap unglued flat sleeve blanks around various products: yogurt cups, microwavable meals, snack cups, dessert, jelly cups, canned tunas…
The machine takes into consideration all factors around EU safety standards, hygienic requirements in the food and dairy industry, and offers the option to be made washdown to IP65, which is exclusively offered by ELITER Packaging Machinery on the market in China.
Why the Wrap-Around Cartoner machine is the first step of your transformation?
We have seen the rocketing market volume of ready-to-eat meals not only in China but as well worldwide. These meals, whatever microwavable ones or frozen ones, are usually wrapped with cardboard sleeves. There is a consensus that cardboard or carton sleeve is a new form of sustainable packaging to reduce paper and printing material wastes, and to replace plastics. So, our pursuit is to catch the trend as well as to follow the environmental concerns.
Food processing and manufacturing companies around the world are looking for more sustainable packaging approach to shift away from the past one which has been featured by notable packaging and plastic waste, an example is the shrink wrapping used in the past to for the multipack packaging such as drinks and beverages. The cardboard sleeve on the other hand, eliminate the use of plastic and saves paper and printing materials.
What is your next plan of transformation? Or new model to be launched?
Our engineering team is now around the corner to finish the design of our Next-Generation Cartoning Machine. The machine will be a balance between the intermittent cartoning machine and the continuous motion cartoning machine.
From our perspective, an intermittent cartoning machine is slow in output but affordable, with a theoretical maximum speed of 120 cartons per minute. While a continuous cartoning machine is far more complex than an intermittent cartoning machine due to the barrel cam loader, and then the price of it increases considerable and a gap is left between the intermittent and the continuous one.
The next-generation cartoning machine by ELITER will be installed with a compact servo-driven loader, a system that resembles to the Italian manufacturer Universal Pack’s Delta 200 and that of Marchesini’s MA255 Cartoning Machine, this is to replace the complex barrel cam loader. The expected maximum speed is between 180 and 200 cartons per minute.
How do you see your industry or sector in the future ahead?
The packaging machine and packaging automation sector in China is going through a tough stage, where there is a tide of overcapacity: mountains of companies competing with each other by manufacturing homogenous packaging machines and what’s more, all of them are basically of lower market-positioning.
We can see a considerable portion of packaging machine manufacturers will lose the game and have to quite the market. Those who stay left, are companies that attach importance to innovation, quality and performance.
About ELITER Packaging Machinery
ELITER Packaging Machinery is a small family business in the packaging machine and packaging automation industry and consists of 18 people, a manufacturer and global supplier of cartoning machines, overwrapping machines, wrap-around sleevers and sleeve wrap around packaging machines.